


The Only One Who Cared

by Alexdoesthings



Series: One shot before canon [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Broken Stiles Stilinski, Character Death, Dead Derek Hale, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Misery, Pack Feels, Tragedy, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23973700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexdoesthings/pseuds/Alexdoesthings
Summary: Stiles and Derek had a little pack all their own. Stumbling into a trap changes all that.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: One shot before canon [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/67932
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	The Only One Who Cared

**Author's Note:**

> This was something I wrote to end one of my other fics but it just felt wrong to do. I still liked it though so I'm posting it. Sorry in advance

Everything was in slow motion. It was as though Stiles’s mind was the only thing processing events at a normal speed and everything else was moving so slowly. It gave him time to process everything, every detail, and it showed him, in vivid color, how helpless he was to stop it.

There were water droplets suspended in the air, glistening like crystals as the flood light bounced off them. They caught in Derek’s hair and made it shine, giving him an almost angelic halo, but Stiles had never seen a more broken angel. Derek’s mouth opened to say something, his lips parting slowly and his eyes widening as he realized what was happening. His muscles bent and tensed. He couldn’t move fast enough though, didn’t even get his claws out.

The hunk of metal that came flying through the air at him, scattered the water and threw reflected rays of light off its surface, like arrows. It pierced Derek’s body, punching through skin, into muscle, past organs, and out the other side. Derek’s body was jerked backward with the momentum and his face morphed with the pain. He caught himself and stared with almost disbelieving eyes at the air around him as it slowly dawned on him how much damage had been done. His head lowered inch by agonizing inch to stare down at the wound as it stained his shirt in deep crimson. The blood did not throw the light like the water did, instead it seemed to sluggishly absorb the light and what it couldn’t absorb it reflected stubbornly on its surface.

A ruby droplet fell to Derek’s feet and soaked into the parched ground, like an offering. Derek’s legs started to give out under him and Stiles scrambled up to catch him, moving through the slowness of time at a maddening pace.

“Derek,” Stiles screamed as he raced forward and threw his arms out to catch him.

His arms wrapped around Derek’s torso and he pulled him close to his chest, telling himself he had time, Derek would be alright. He collapsed to his knees as Derek’s weight hit him, his legs not supporting him. Derek’s legs splayed out in front of him in a heap like he couldn’t muster the energy to do anything with them. Stiles gripped the metal tight and, with more strength than he knew he had, ripped it from Derek’s body and threw it aside. He hoped that it would be enough and he had gotten it out soon enough for Derek to heal, he needed Derek to be okay.

Stiles cradled Derek’s head in the crook of one elbow, holding him close to his body. He didn’t care that his clothes would be soaked in blood later, he only cared about the fact that blood was pouring out of Derek in an endless and unstoppable flow. Stiles’s eyes racked Derek’s body, trying to find some glimmer of hope, anything. Derek was shaking and Stiles breathing was uneven, tears trying to force their way forward. His eyes finally fell on Derek’s and held there as the werewolf grabbed his sleeve and gripped it tight.

“You came back,” Derek struggled to force the words out through trembling lips, every syllable costing him, but he sounded amazed all the same.

“No you don’t get to die on me. Stop talking and heal,” Stiles commanded angrily, voice breaking on the last word despite his best intentions.

“You’ve always come back,” Derek continued, intense and uncaring that Stiles had told him to stop, needing to speak the words, “Only you, Stiles.”

“You’re not having your last words here, this is not happening right now,” Stiles stated heatedly through his tears, denying the evidence of his own eyes with every fiber of his being.

“You,” Derek stopped for a second to close his eyes against the pain, hand tightening before he met Stiles’s eyes again, “You cared.”

“And I’ll do a lot more of that,” Stiles promised with doomed conviction, voice strained, “Just, please, don’t...”

He curled around Derek and held him in a tight hug, trying to stifle his crying in Derek’s shoulder. Miserable little sounds kept escaping from his throat and the tears poured down his face in an uninhibited flow that threatened to drain his entire body. Derek curled around him too, as best he could anyway while his body rebelled against him, trembling uncontrollably.

“You… saved me,” Derek muttered, words almost unintelligible, broken as they were.

“And I’ll do it again,” Stiles promised, uselessly, tears tearing his own voice apart so it was little more than a squeak of misery falling over his tongue.

Derek’s trembling was getting weaker and the heat of the blood flowing over Stiles’s pant leg was getting sluggish. Stiles couldn’t force anymore words out of his throat, only the bare little broken sounds of a wounded animal as he mouthed the word please over and over again, begging Derek and the powers that be to let him live.

With the last of his strength Derek pulled himself close to Stiles’s ear. Stiles felt the halted breath on his ear and the movement of his lips but he could make out none of the words but one, “…love…”

Then Derek’s body gave one final spasm and he collapsed into Stiles’s arms, nothing but dead weight. Stiles turned his head to look at Derek’s face in numb horror, neck muscles moving agonizingly slowly. His eyes were closed and his face was ashen, lips parted and body totally limp.

“No,” Stiles whispered, “I didn’t hear all of it; you have to tell me what you said. You have to stay awake.”

He pressed his ear to Derek’s chest, trying to seek out a heartbeat, a breath, something, but he was met with silence. “No,” he whispered again, repeating the denial with more conviction this time. He shook Derek as he started saying the word again and again getting louder every time he said it until he was screaming at the top of his lungs, like saying it enough would make what had happened go away. He was shaking Derek but still clutching his body to his chest, like the combination of being held and being shaken was the solution to waking Derek from death.

Stiles didn’t know how long he sat there and he didn’t care. At some point, other people arrived but he barely registered the chaos around him, didn’t care who was on the scene now as long as Derek opened his eyes again. People were crowding around him and there were suddenly hands everywhere. He freaked out when he realized they were trying to take Derek from him and clung on tighter, lashing out at the hands furiously. They overwhelmed him though and pulled Stiles away. He kept his eyes glued to Derek as he thrashed viciously against the people pulling him back.

He didn’t care that Derek’s blood had dried in the creases in his clothes and cracked as he moved. He didn’t care that his throat was being ripped raw by the force of his screams as he yelled Derek’s name over and over. He didn’t care that someone was swearing when he clocked them in the nose trying to escape their hold. He didn’t care who was talking in his ear, trying to get through to him. He didn’t care about anything but watching that wound heal and making light of another near death experience with Derek, just because he could.

Stiles knew though. He pushed it aside and denied it with all his willpower, but he knew. Derek wasn’t coming back. They’d never run through the woods together or banter back and forth or sleep near each other or draw comfort from each other again. Derek was gone and a part of Stiles had gone with him, leaving an identical, gaping hole in his being to match Derek’s physical one.

“It’s like losing a limb,” Stiles chuckled humorlessly, staring at his hands where he could still see the blood, even now, like it had stained his skin permanently.


End file.
